


Of Collision In The Dark

by etacanis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etacanis/pseuds/etacanis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Collision In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day One of my 30 days/300 Words challenge with [pointblankdarcy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pointblankdarcy/works). Prompt was [Saying Your Names](http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/2774640.html) by Richard Siken.

At seventeen, James starts to call people ducky. It doesn't stick, mostly. Lily scowls at him and Albus stops it with a succint _no_. His friends laugh at him, call him an old woman, call him grandma and eventually it drops, everyone goes back to their real names or their old nicknames and nobody gets called ducky anymore, nobody except for Teddy.

"Hey, ducky," he says, over breakfast because he lives with Ted now, because there's space and it's not living with his parents and it's not try to rent a flat himself on minimum wage. He'll scrawl _Ducky, we need more milk_ on a piece of parchment, charm it to the cupboard door so Teddy can't miss it, even though James himself works on Diagon Alley, could pick it up himself no problem.

Teddy doesn't ever tell him no, doesn't ever tell him _you know my name's Ted, right?_ but he doesn't ever evaluate the warmth in the pit of his stomach when James murmurs _ducky, you're squashing my legs_ as they cramp together on the single sofa because that warmth is too much like the frosty coldness, the tight spasm of muscle in his chest, when James comes home with another man on his arm, on the nights when Teddy has to cover his head with the pillow just to get the noises to a level he can almost ignore.

He wraps too much up in ducky and he knows it, Victoire's told him more than once, scowled at him and bitten her nails into the soft underbelly of his wrist and told him _enough is enough, Ted_ but it's not enough, and that's the problem. It's not enough when James runs a hand through his hair in the mornings while Teddy drinks his tea, because he's laughing and saying _love the colour today, duck_ while Teddy pretends it's something else. It's not enough because when James' head is pressed to his stomach, shifting with every breath Teddy takes, it's because there's not enough space and not because that's where he wants to be.

He tries to lose himself in people who are _almost_ James, with hair the wrong side of brunette and eyes more hazel, who have names that aren't quite like James, Jay or Jameson or Jim or Joel and he hates himself for how pathetic it is because it's not the same anyway, it's not right because there's no Ducky, no cuddling on the sofa, no gentle touches to say hello when it's too early to talk, there's just sticky and sweaty skin and bruises that don't wash away in the bath, there's just the roil of nausea after in his stomach and the self hatred when he looks in the mirror and fake, plastered on smiles when James says _looks like you had fun last night, ducky_.

It all comes down a stupid obsession, the warmth in his stomach and the undeniable knowledge that he's stupidly, sickeningly in love with someone he can never have, someone who'd never want him anyway, the undeniable knowledge that he'll wait for him anyway.


End file.
